“If an architect gives you a sketch, don’t take it as a solution, take it as a statement of the problem and then come up with your own counterproposals,” says SOM Structural and Civil Engineering Partner William F. Baker. DETAIL Engineering 4: SOM Structural Engineering offers a rare look into the inner workings of the firm’s most complex projects. More than an exercise of physics, DETAIL Engineering 4 reveals SOM’s structural engineering process as an organic evolution of ideas guided by principles of simplicity, clarity, and sustainability.
Featuring New York City’s Lever House and Chicago’s Willis Tower among other notable projects, the book explores structure as a rigorous, poetic response to an architectural challenge. For the first time, DETAIL Engineering 4 invites the public to thoroughly examine SOM’s collaborative structural engineering process, and explore some of the world’s greatest structures as they evolve from sketch to skyscraper.